The elite Alpine Rescue Team pulls Darian Shaw of Salina across the rushing water Friday. Other well-trained rescue teams worked to pull mountain residents to safety. <B><a href="http://photos.denverpost.com/2013/09/12/photos-massive-flash-flooding-along-front-range-of-colorado/">View more images from the Colorado floods.</a></b>

Hundreds of rescue-team members and firefighters — who train relentlessly to battle blazes, find lost people in the snow and recover fallen bodies from treacherous cliffs — were instead building rope bridges across rushing waters, digging trails in the mud, bracing themselves on uncertain mountainsides and calming rattled evacuees from Colorado’s epic flood.

Darian Shaw saw it firsthand.

“The level of their skill and dedication is something to really be recognized,” she said Tuesday. “I can’t say enough.”

Before dawn Friday, a world made of mud, rocks, trees and water crashed down on Salina, her Boulder County mountain community of about 80 people.

Four Mile Creek, which usually dries up by the end of summer, roared in a pitch of churning water, tumbling boulders and cracking trees. Mudslides rumbled down like thunder, crushing vehicles and homes. Shaw feared the mountain would come plowing through a wall at any moment.

“Definitely, it was frightening,” Shaw said.

Gold Run Road was washed away, so help for Salina would have to come from above, down the same terrain that was giving way.

Volunteers stepped forward.

They carried in ropes, pulleys and a human-sized basket through the deep mud. With four members on each side of the rushing water, they cautiously moved people across in the basket. They worked into the night, at one spot and then another.

Members of the Four Mile Canyon Fire Department and the Alpine Rescue Team lifted out her and three other people, two dogs and a canary.

Above them, Aspen Mountain Rescue members built stable trails to get people out.

Boulder County Emergency Management said more than 1,500 people were evacuated with assistance between last Wednesday night and Tuesday afternoon. Although most of the evacuees were physically fine, they had gone days without electricity, phone service and information. Also, some were low on food, water and hope.

In Boulder County alone, there were more than 900 rescuers — most of them Army National Guard members and everyday Coloradans who work with volunteer fire departments and search-and-rescue teams.

Many of Colorado’s rescue teams consist of high-country specialists recognized as some of the most skilled in the world. The Alpine Rescue Team, for example, was recruited to help recover pieces of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003, and it has traveled to Israel to train rescuers there.

Each week, its members study in a classroom on weeknights and train in the mountains on weekends. Petrilli said it’s common for members to leave home in the middle of the night for a mission, then go to their jobs the next morning. Members buy their own gear, and they pay the cost when they’re injured, including Band-Aids.

Steve Wilson said the Evergreen-based team averages 110 missions a year, but saving people from their imperiled homes was something unforgettable.

“The people we normally see are those who chose to go out in the mountains and got into trouble,” he said. “Sometimes it’s their fault, but not always. These were people trapped in their homes, where they should expect to be safe.

“They didn’t do anything to get in their predicament. They lost so much, their homes in some cases, their communities. It’s just different, and it was an honor for us to be there to help any way we could.”

Wilson said he is at his best as a person among passionately caring people.

“I get to be around the very best people in the world,” he said. “These are people who spend their own money and risk their lives to help people they don’t know and they’re never going to see again. And they don’t want anything in return.”

Alpine Rescue president Jerry Petrilliand other members of his team stressed they were only part of a large effort.

“Colorado has no shortage of good people,” he said.

And when the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group in Boulder asked for help from outsiders, the response was immediate from across the state, said Dixon Hutchinson, the group’s mission coordinator.

Petrilli, who had asked for 10 volunteers from his team, heard from at least 30 wanting to go each day. Some of those not picked for the mission waited back at headquarters to clean the rescuers’ gear as late as 1 a.m.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry. He likes stories more than reports. Tell him if you know one.

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